


Desideratum

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Old West, POV Buck Wilmington, POV Ezra Standish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: Even sunnier times can have a dark lining.
Relationships: Chris Larabee & Buck Wilmington, Chris Larabee/Ezra Standish
Kudos: 19





	Desideratum

The anniversary of Sarah and Adam's deaths was the worst part of each year, but it wasn't the only time when the pain ballooned inside Chris till he knew he'd burst if he didn't give into it: if he didn't let himself go, howl out his fury and hate and anguish. Stop trying to block and control the pain, but instead submit to it wholly.

When it got to the point where his skin felt like a tightening tourniquet, trapping him inside, when his back felt like it would snap from the rigid way he had to hold himself simply to keep from flying apart: Then he took a long, deep breath and turned away from Ezra's wide eyes and frozen face. He went to the one person who not only knew what he needed, but could and would give him the outer torment that was the only remedy that defeated the inner.

:::::::

Buck knew how to give physical pain without damage, and had the compassion to do it without judgment. Growing up in his mother's brothel hadn't taught him only about respect for women and the joys of lovemaking. It had also given him stark lessons about the darkness some men dwelled with inside themselves, unable to entirely escape it and needing help to keep that darkness walled away from consuming the people they loved.

Buck could see when the guilt was mounting in Chris again. Buck had been there at the deaths and seen the darkness they birthed in Chris. He'd offered all the help he could think of in myriad ways through the years, but Chris had rejected them all...except the last, the hardest. Eventually, bending under the pain's crippling weight, Chris had accepted.

The times between kept lengthening as the years passed, but Buck could read the signs of its growing in Chris. He used the time before it came to a head to gird himself for the moment when Chris would finally break and come to him. Buck needed that time to prepare so he'd be ready and not fail his oldest friend. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but it was better he do it than let Chris wander somewhere else looking for relief anywhere he could find it.

So when Chris looked at him that afternoon when Buck came into the saloon, and when Chris just held his gaze with a long, steady, determined, blank stare, Buck stiffened, but swallowed and gave Chris a single, curt nod. Chris nodded back, threw back the last of his whiskey, then stood and walked away from the table without a word or glance at Ezra, Vin, or Nathan. Chris walked out the batwing doors, a shadow against the bright light, spurs clinking, footsteps firm.

Buck avoided looking at the others, went to the bar, and ordered a whiskey. When JD joined him and chattered about something, Buck said, "Not now," and turned and left.

He went to his room to gather his things, delaying for fifteen minutes. He washed his face and his hands. He had a visceral memory of his mother preparing herself for a client. She'd done it for love, too: to give Buck a home, clothes and shoes as he grew, and schooling. A safe life, snug in the protection of the working girls. The best things she could do for him, even if it wasn't what she wanted to do herself. For love, she'd done everything she had to do.

He straightened his shoulders and strode to the stable. He arrived at the ranch twenty minutes or so after Chris. Chris's ranch, away from town, protected in its small, empty valley where the hills would absorb any screams and nobody would ever know there were tears.

Chris had taken off his shirt, boots, and socks when Buck arrived. Chris turned from contemplating the bed when Buck entered without knocking. They locked eyes for a long moment, then Buck turned away deliberately. He dumped his saddlebag on the table and took out the rope, the horsewhip, and the other necessities. When he turned around again, Chris was staring at the implements with hot, hating, hungry eyes and unbuttoning his pants.

:::::::

The sun set in a fiery, glorious ball of light behind the distant mountains as Buck rode back to town. He watched it with a blur of tears for the beauty in this world and the foulness alongside it. He took a leisurely time currying, feeding, and settling his horse before walking slowly back to his room, where he stripped naked before washing every part of himself thoroughly. He poured away the dirty water and poured fresh into the bowl, then carefully washed the whip, watching the blood foul the water. He hung the whip to dry afterwards and sat on the bed for a time, just gathering himself, until the shivering stopped.

Then he dressed in fresh clothes and walked to the saloon in the cooling night air. Pushing inside the doors into bright lights and warmth and the noise of people and the honky-tonk, he paused to look at the table Chris had left three hours ago. Only Ezra was still there, playing cards with some cowboys. His head jerked up as though he felt Buck's stare and his steely eyes locked with Buck's. Buck nodded, then turned away to go to the bar.

He ordered another whiskey, though beer was his usual preference. Not tonight. He'd have a few whiskies and some dinner, then go home alone to his room. Tonight, he couldn't stomach touching another person.

Behind him, he heard the sharp rap of distinctive, Eastern-leather, fancy boots heading out of the saloon. Some of the tension flowed out of his shoulders and he relaxed minutely, letting his eyes close in relief that it was over: this time, once more. At least for him.

:::::::

Chris was stretched out naked on his stomach on the bed when Ezra walked into the shack. Ezra hung his hat and coat on the hooks by the door and sat at the table to remove his boots. He built up the fire in the stove in the cold room, filled a pot with water, and set it on top. He took the salve off the shelf from behind the cans of beans and picked out the softest of Chris's tack-cleaning rags. Then he retrieved his flask from his coat pocket and sat at the table, which put his back to Chris in the bed across the room. He contemplated the rags and salve between sips from his flask as he waited for the water to warm.

Eventually, he got up and stuck a finger in the water. Judging it warm enough, he capped his flask and left it on the table, then took the pot over to the bed and set it on the bedside cabinet. He went back for the rags and salve, then unbuckled his gunbelt and hung it on the far bedpost, the one Chris's gunbelt wasn't already occupying on Chris's usual side of the bed. The side nearest the door, as Chris always insisted on. Chris, who always wanted to confront danger head-on.

Chris, who always refused to do things any way but his way and always had to be in charge.

Ezra snorted as he sat down on the bed, using his backside to force Chris to move over to give him room. Chris lifted his hips and moved as required, slower than usual. A good deal slower and more graceless than when his back wasn't bloody, welted, and bruised from shoulders to hips. Ezra dipped the first rag in the water and set about cleaning the long stripes, some of which had bled more than others. Some were just welts, raised and red. The bruises were in their infancy; they'd be more colorful by morning.

He cleaned the slashes with efficiency. This was trail medicine: everybody knew it. Patching yourself up after a fight, patching up a companion. Rough comfort, rough care. Nathan would've had compounds to ease the process, to mute the sting. Nathan's hands would've been surer in their touch, as well as, perhaps, kinder.

But that was one of the reasons Nathan wasn't here: pain was the point.

The other reason was that nobody but Buck and Ezra could know about this dark, recurring need of Chris's. Buck as Chris's oldest friend, who'd been with him from that first stark day when they'd discovered the fire and the burnt bodies. Ezra as Chris's...secret. Ezra was the locus of Chris's tentative embracing of a certain hope for a new life, which was at constant war with the darkness that swirled within him and told him he'd failed the most important people in his life, that he didn't deserve new happiness or, for that matter, anything good at all. The battle between hope and despair was a perpetual emotional storm raging behind Chris's stoic exterior, and nobody could know its depths, nobody:

Or Chris would likely just pull up stakes again and move on.

So this was Buck's burden and it was Ezra's burden. Chris had other people who loved him and would try to help, if they could, but they couldn't. Nobody could do what Buck did for Chris, giving him physical pain in a controlled but fierce way when that was Chris's overriding demand.

And Ezra...well. Ezra offered not only the care of a friend. He was fucking determined not to let Chris's dark, driven compulsion to make himself suffer destroy the tentative new life they were forging together in their ill-suited, perfectly weirdly suited union.

Everybody had secrets and this one about Chris, about Buck, about Ezra and Chris: this secret was theirs to share. Nobody else could ever know or it would change their lives forever. Buck didn't want anyone to even suspect he knew how to inflict pain with minimal damage, or--more to the point--that he was willing to do it, if needed. That wasn't the man Buck wanted to be in anybody's eyes; including, Ezra suspected, in his own. He did it for Chris, because somebody had to to keep Chris from seeking what he needed from strangers who wouldn't care how much damage they did.

Chris was so intensely private that he would, Ezra was sure, simply vanish if anybody ever even suspected he had needs he couldn't master, that he wasn't entirely in charge of himself in a crucial, basic way.

As for Ezra and Chris's secret, which Buck knew and others in the group probably suspected, well, that could get them run out of town or shot in the back, if anybody else found out. Of course it would always have to be kept quiet and hidden.

But that wasn't Ezra's worry or regret. As he bent over Chris's back putting the stinging salve onto the open wounds he'd washed clean, he absorbed each of Chris's small tremors skin-to-skin as his hand touched Chris's heated back. Ezra fought a tremble in his own fingers as he inevitably caused pain: which he couldn't bear.

He couldn't stand the idea of hurting Chris. No matter the intensity of his feelings for Chris, Ezra couldn't bring himself to provide what Chris needed in the dark times. He sometimes forced himself to picture doing it, see himself wielding the whip, the paddle, but then he'd see Chris's body bucking in pain, Chris's face wet with tears...and he couldn't, he couldn't, he failed.

Which is why Chris turned to Buck when his anguish grew so intense he straight out had to have an outlet.

Ezra put the salve back on the shelf behind the beans and threw the bloody rags into the stove. He washed his hands in the last of the tepid water, then blew out the lantern and undressed. He got under the covers on the far side of the bed--his side, away from the door--and waited.

Chris pushed himself up in the bed and turned onto his side with a grunt, settling so his back still bore none of his weight but he was facing Ezra. Ezra ran his fingers down Chris's arm, then closed them around Chris's fingers, which tightened in return. Chris said nothing, as he'd never said anything when Ezra returned to him afterwards, just shifted until he could rest his head against Ezra's shoulder. Ezra closed his eyes and lay with the astringent scent of the salve in his nose and Chris's soft, warm breath evening out into sleep against his chest.

Then he let his own tears fall in the silent dark, with Chris warm and safe against him once more and nobody to see or ever know.


End file.
